The head of the Science Advisory Board, Peter Thorne, and the head of the Board of Scientific Counselors, Deborah Swackhamer, said they learned from news reporters that they had been replaced.

“This is really a destruction of the scientific integrity at EPA,” said Thorne, a University of Iowa professor of occupational and environmental health who has served as the head of the Science Advisory Board since 2015. “It’s disheartening to see.”

Thorne is is still listedas the Science Advisory Board chair on the EPA’s website, and said he had not heard anything about changes to the boarduntil a reporter called after Pruitt’s press conference on Tuesday afternoon. Thorne said he had hoped to serve another two years as chair, even as other members of the advisory board have been fired or have quit to protest Pruitt’s antagonistic approach to scientists, but now his term is over.

Ana Diez Roux, the head of CASAC, was also dismissed as chair. She did not return an email and call from HuffPost.

“Administrator Pruitt issued a directive yesterday to ensure independence, geographic diversity and integrity in EPA science committees,” an EPA spokesman said in a statement to HuffPost. “Membership on these three boards consists of qualified scientists who will help strengthen public confidence in EPA science.”

Pruitt announced on Tuesday that he was replacing Thorne with Michael Honeycutt, the head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s toxicology division, to serve as the head of the Science Advisory Board.

Honeycutt, accused in 2010 by the Texas Observer of “abusing science” and serving as a “crony” to then-Gov. Rick Perry (R), leaned heavily on research funded by the chemical, fossil fuel and tobacco industries. He once suggested the health risks linked to smog were overstated, said that ozone standards made “no biological sense” because “most people are indoors for 90 percent of the time,” and blasted the EPA for relying on epidemiological studies that he considered “not scientifically rigorous.”

Pruitt said the new rules would ensure “there’s integrity in the process and that the scientists that are advising us are doing so without any kind of appearance of conflict.”

Thorne dismissed those remarks as doublespeak, saying he did not get funding from the EPA for any research, but that the boards had rigorous procedures in place to recuse scientists from advising on subjects they had received grants to study.

“That’s the intent of it, to erode the tried-and-true practice of using rigorous peer-reviewed science to formulate policy and instead bring into the fold those who seek to profit from rewriting the rules on environmental protection,” Thorne said.

Swackhamer, who has been head of the Board of Scientific Counselors since 2015, was awaiting a flight home to the U.S. at an airport in Zagreb, Croatia, when she received an email from a friend with a link to a news report on the EPA’s press conference. The professor emerita of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota said she is retired, and does not receive any grant money from the EPA.

“I verified it with EPA today,” she wrote in an email to HuffPost. “I have not been told why I was removed as chair.”

This is really a destruction of the scientific integrity at EPA.Peter Thorne, Science Advisory Board

Pruitt named Paul Gilman as Swackhamer’s replacement as chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors. Gilman, who served as an assistant administrator to the EPA from 2002 to 2004, currently works as the chief sustainability officer at the waste management and incinerator company Covanta. His advocacy for using burning trash as a source of fuel raises questions about his role at the EPA, particularly after the incinerator industry attempted to sabotage the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ effort to push for 100 percent renewable energy in June.

Unlike Thorne, Swackhamer has time left in her term on the board, and she told E&E News she intended to continue on as an adviser ― something the EPA said it “fully expects.” Swackhamer said at least one person on her board may be affected by the new rule, but declined to give that person’s name until she confirmed the researcher had been notified.

Swackhamer went public five months ago with accusations that Pruitt’s chief of staff pressured her to alter her congressional testimony to play down the EPA’s dismissal of scientific advisers.

“I was stunned that he was pushing me to ‘correct’ something in my testimony,” Swackhamer told The New York Times in June. “I was factual, and he was not. I felt bullied.”

The unceremonious and hotly-politicized dismissals of top officials has become a hallmark of the Trump administration. When President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May, Comey found out from TV news reports while speaking to employees in Los Angeles. The Department of Justice fired Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, after Trump suddenly demanded his resignation months after asking him to stay on. Earlier this year, the EPA axed 38 science advisers in what many described at the time as a purge.

President Donald Trump is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-climate-change-action_us_5847dd05e4b08c82e888db36?kqqhr4fjbss9py14i">no environmental champion</a>, but even he has said it's &ldquo;vitally important" to have&nbsp;&ldquo;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html" target="_blank">crystal clean</a>&rdquo; air and water.<strong>&nbsp;</strong>Pruitt, however, has proven himself to be antagonistic to even this idea. <br><br>Since taking office as Oklahoma&rsquo;s attorney general in 2011, Pruitt has sued the Environmental Protection Agency&nbsp;on multiple occasions in an effort to overturn rules limiting air pollution from power plants -- including the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/csapr">Cross-State Air Pollution Rule</a>, which curbs power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/mats/epa-announces-mercury-and-air-toxics-standards-mats-power-plants-rules-and-fact-sheets">Mercury and Air Toxics Standards</a>, which place limits on the amount of mercury, arsenic and other toxic pollution.<br><br>As Elliott Negin, a senior writer at<strong>&nbsp;</strong>the Union of Concerned Scientists,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/trump-epa-nominee-scott-p_b_13932232.html" target="_blank">explained in January</a>, those are both life-saving regulations: &ldquo;Taken together, they are <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/ttn/ecas/regdata/Benefits/casprmats.pdf">projected</a> to prevent 18,000 to 46,000 premature deaths across the country and save $150 billion to $380 billion in health care costs annually. In Pruitt&rsquo;s home state, the two regulations would avert as many as 720 premature deaths and save as much as $5.9 billion per year.&rdquo;<br><br>Pruitt <a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/courts/oklahoma-attorney-general-scott-pruitt-sues-epa-again/article_c603ba08-dd62-5b0a-ad3e-e4b8d0e2d977.html">sued</a> the EPA in 2015 over the&nbsp;<a href="http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-05/documents/rule_preamble_web_version.pdf" target="_blank">Waters of the United States rule</a>&nbsp;-- which, in a piece co-written with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), he&nbsp;<a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/234685-epa-water-rule-is-blow-to-americans-private-property-rights">called</a>&nbsp;the &ldquo;greatest blow to private property rights the modern era has seen.&rdquo; The <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/trump-public-lands-waters-united-states-environment/" target="_blank">rule</a>, which is currently tied up in the courts, extends EPA protection to tens of millions of acres of wetlands and millions of miles of streams,&nbsp;including those that <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/issues/enforce-clean-water-act" target="_blank">1 in 3&nbsp;Americans rely on for drinking water</a>.<br><br>Pruitt also sued the EPA over its <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ozone-pollution/2015-revision-2008-ozone-national-ambient-air-quality-standards-naaqs-supporting" target="_blank">2015 regulation</a>&nbsp;strengthening the national health standards <a href="http://newsok.com/oklahoma-joins-five-states-in-suit-against-new-epa-ozone-limits/article/5456440?custom_click=rss" target="_blank">for ground-level ozone</a> or smog pollution.<br><br>Several of these lawsuits are still ongoing, and environmental advocates have called on Pruitt to recuse himself from decisions related to the regulations he&rsquo;s challenged in court. Legal experts told Bloomberg, however, that they knew of <a href="https://www.bna.com/epa-foe-pruitt-n73014448247/" target="_blank">no rules in place</a> that would compel such an action on Pruitt&rsquo;s part.<br><br>&ldquo;Every American should be appalled that President-elect Trump just picked someone who has made a career of being a vocal defender for polluters to head our Environmental Protection Agency,&rdquo; Trip Van Noppen, president of Earthjustice, <a href="http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2016/earthjustice-responds-to-president-elect-trump-s-pick-to-head-the-environmental-protection-agency" target="_blank">said</a> in a December 2016 statement. &ldquo;He has fought Environmental Protection Agency pollution limits on toxic substances like soot and mercury that put us all at risk for increased cancer, childhood asthma and other health problems. He falsely claims that fracking doesn&rsquo;t contaminate drinking water supplies.&rdquo;